1. Technical Field
The present application relates to a multilevel container filling machine such as a multilevel beverage bottle filling machine.
2. Background Information
Background information is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily admit that subsequently mentioned information and publications are prior art.
“Containers” within the meaning of the present application include but are not limited to bottles, cans, tubes and other containers which are used and/or are suitable for use as packing means for a wide variety of bulk goods to be packaged, and for example for liquid and/or viscous liquids.
When packing means or containers of this type are filled, filling machines are used that employ a rotary construction and process a high number of containers per unit of time, and possibly machines that have a rotor which is driven in rotation continuously and/or in a clocked manner around a vertical machine axis, on which rotor the filling of the containers is performed in filling stations during the rotational movement of the rotor between a container inlet and a container outlet. The filling stations are thereby located at uniform angular intervals around the vertical machine axis. Because the filling of the containers occurs during the rotational motion of the rotor between the container inlet and the container outlet, basically there is an angular range of less than three hundred sixty degrees of the rotational movement of the rotor available for the filling, i.e. even under optimized conditions, this angular range is on the order of magnitude of three hundred thirty degrees.
When the machine is operating at a high production rate, i.e. at a rate that is required or desired for filling machines that employ a rotary construction, this limited angular range of the rotational motion of the rotor that is available for the filling leads to extremely large rotor diameters which are required or desired to make it possible achieve a sufficient filling distance at a high production rate and thus at a high speed of rotation of the rotor. For example, on filling machines that operate at high production rates, rotor diameters in an order of magnitude of seven and one half meters are altogether common.